Ecotone Mechanic Functions + Flashbang Science Internship

As mentioned last semester, myself and another M.A Student Daniel Startin have been in an internship with a company called Flashbang Science for some time now. Our role in the company has been to transform their site to have more interactive elements which will draw children age 6-11 to the website. This included designing character mascots for the company (Flash the Bunsen Burner and Bang the Beaker) which can now be seen on the company website and on their portable trailer they use for science sessions.
 

On top of that, we have been in charge with all the design for the ‘Fun Stuff’ section of the website, working on puzzles, quizzes and flash games. Our current project is ‘Flashbang Tubes’ a pipe mixing game which will be the first of several games to hit the website next month (fingers crossed). The company also has intentions of developing iPod versions of all the games.

Besides that, our Friday morning lectures have started up again and this semester we have to attend them all because nearly half of the DE4201 module is an essay reviewing the lectures! I can’t be the only one in thinking this essay was made literally just to force students to attend those lectures. Thankfully the first lecture with Lightning Designer Claire Norcross wasn’t a mind numbing boring as the previous semester’s lectures had been. With lighting been such a significant element in creating atmosphere and mood in games, I would have appreciated some more relevant lightning techniques as opposed to lightning product designs.

Regarding the Ecotone prototype I’ve managed to create a list of all the mechanics/scripts I’ll need to hunt down/write for the very basic structure of the demo.

- A camera to follow the main character from left to right.
- A player controller so the player can move left or right.
- A normal jump and double jump.
- A collision detection so the player can jump off walls or surfaces.
- A player start for the character to spawn.
- Death Zones
- Checkpoints
- Pushing or Pulling Objects (Rigid Bodies)
- Grabbing and clinging to objects.
- Climbing on walls/ceilings
- Camo changes texture on trigger surfaces
- Material mechanics on specific textures change the physics of the game

The ones in bold are the ones I imagine will be the trickiest to find/write as they are very specific to my game concept whereas most of the others have more than likely be used in other projects and can be found in the Unity wiki.